Sunday, 4 November 2007

1. Pan Am was the first airline to operate the TriStar 500 with extended wingtips/active ailerons, in 1980?2. The first TriStar 500 models delivered to British Airways in 1979 did not originally have the wingtip extensions? They were retrofitted later.

3. The extended wingtips/ active ailerons were first installed and tested in the L-1011 prototype (N1011)?

Tuesday, 9 October 2007

L-1011-500, OD-ZEE, MSN 293B-1239 was impounded at Viru Viru International airport (Santa Cruz - Bolívia) after LAB ceased its operations, earlier this year. The aircraft is still stored at VVI and its future doesn't seem very bright unless the $4m owed is paid.

Here you can see a photo of this aircraft taken last September. OD-ZEE was the old TAP Air Portugal's flagship with registration CS-TEA.Factfile was already updated.

Wednesday, 12 September 2007

We must be careful when comparing these two aircrafts. The main difference is: when did McDonnell Douglas have its first DC-10 long-range aircraft? It entered in service in 1972 with the DC-10-30 series.

Now the same question for Lockheed, when did it have its long-ranger? It entered in service only in 1979! Of course Lockheed could not compete in the long range market.
There were sold 199 L-1011 -1,-100,-200 and there were sold 138 DC-10-10 and DC-10-15. Now this is a fair comparison!

Why the long range version of the TriStar was so delayed? Well, not because of RB211 reliability problems or so. Just because its production and development for more powerful versions was halted almost for one year due to RR bankruptcy, which also affected initial sales. It was delayed even further due to overcapacity with the airlines and depressed market. The TriStar 500 could have been ready by 1977 and before that Lockheed studied -250 long range version with the same -500 engines, MTOW and fuel capacity. But it never came to a production standard. There are only 6 L-1011-250 which were converted from -1 series in 1986, already after the shut down of the L-1011 production line!

When TriStar 500 entered in service, it was too late. In the early 80's it was facing competition not only from the DC-10 but also from 2nd generation and more fuel efficient, two crew man, twin jets.

No doubt the L-1011 was technically superior and safer than the DC-10. However, the DC-10 when compared to the TriStar had a better payload-range having from the beginning a true long range version.
The L-1011-1 was simply fine for USA's coast to coast routes for which it was designed.

Why the DC-10 stayed longer with airlines? Easy. More aircrafts flying, more spare parts, effective technical support from McDonnell Douglas.

Finally, it seems that McDonnell Douglas also never made money with the DC-10 program. If it wasn't for the KC-10 contract with 60 units built for USAF, which kept the production line opened until 1988, it would also have suffered big losses.

Monday, 30 July 2007

Just to announce a little update in the factfile of aircraft MSN 293B-1242, registered YK-DLC with Privilege Jet Airlines.
Thanks to Holger Ludwig for the information about the current status of this ex-TAP L-1011.

As some of you might have noticed, TriStar500.net was put offline last Summer. Lack of motivation and spare time were the main reasons. Also, I was not willing to spend again such a large amount that I was paying for a hosting of 500MB with unlimited traffic. After some reflection I decided to end the story of this site which started in January 2000. However, some friends of mine were startled with such a decision and tried to help me bringing back TriStar500.net. So, a special thanks must be given to Jorge Diogo and Paulo Correia (AirSim) and to Miguel Blaufuks (simFlight) for providing a new and free hosting to the site.

But motivation was still lacking. And I didn't want to keep the same layout of the site because it was difficult to update. It was only in February of this year that I started working in a new layout and structure of the site. Also a decision was made about changing the site's language from Portuguese to English.

After a long "C-check", TriStar500.netis now back with a very, very simple design and a light structure. Just like I wanted it to be. Off-topic sections from the old site were definitely removed and this site is now only about the L-1011 TriStar.

In this associated blog I will post news about TriStars, site's updates and new photos. So, if you are curious about TriStars, keep an eye on it.

Please feel free to post any comments in this blog. It's always nice to hear from you. If you want to contact me via email, please refer to the 'Contact' page.